Typical Dungeon for DnD starters

[AdalKar]

Hey there =) (unrelated to my other thread :smallwink: )

I ran into trouble thinking of an adventure and it would be really great if I could get some help on planning everything.
I plan on DMing soon and the three players I have are

a)a guy who knows the rules more or less, played in about 5 campains, but his last one was like 2 years ago, so he needs refreshment

b)a girl with pretty much the same pros and cons as the above mentioned guy, but she isn't really good at character building (keeps forgetting something here and there and didn't read enough books to know where to get certain abilities for the concept she wants to play) and

c)one total and completely untainted newbie (never ever ever played any RPG at all but is very interested in it).

So I thought of doing them all a favor and making a typical starters dungeon... but then I thought about "What is a typical starters dungeon?"
I never had one and all my recent campains that I DMed or played in where everything but not for starters :smallbiggrin:
Then it hit me "Ask the Playground with his mighty knowledge of the web" a voice in my head said. "Thou shall receive many an answers and here and there a joke, but ask nicely!" and so I did how the voice told me to :smallbiggrin:

Good would be a dungeon/adventure in which they could re/learn the system, so any kind of skillchecks, some combat maneuvers, maybe a riddle,... something like that :smalltongue:

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much :smallsmile:

[Milo v3]

Have you thought about going into a kobolds mine in search of stolen children? It was the first adventure for my players and I was able to quickly turn slight elements of it into a plot after a few sessions.

[AdalKar]

Didn't think about something like that yet, a plot is not very important right now, but it does sound very interesting. I could include traps, tactics, skill rolls for hiding etc.
That's a great idea =)
Now I need some more monsters for interesting fights to get them to re/understand the system... maybe some sort of spider for entangling effects and poison (and thus saving throw stuff)? And some kind of boss enemy.

Should I include some tripping/disarming/bullrushing/grappling [even if the grapple rules s***] ? Could be a good idea for the newbie to learn everything.

[AslanCross]

Honestly, I don't think the grapple rules are all that bad. My players and I were able to grasp them before the Turn Undead rules.

[docHigh]

One tip: don't through at them random stuff and expect them to survive. I imagine level 1 with standard wealth?

If you have a pit 30 feet deep (heck, even 20 is enough) and they don't have means of getting out of there, then it is no fun (leave a spider-climb potion some-where nearby).

If you plan poisoning them, then should they survive it? What if they get posioned and the next encounter they won't hit anything?

And definetly set there one encounter with impossible odds. They should have a way out of there but they should remember that not all encounters are resolved with fighting.

[docHigh]

Could be a good idea for the newbie to learn everything.

In our campaign we revised the grappling rules by having one person charmed (or lured or what ever) and sent walking towards quick-sand. He failed the needed Will saves and only way to stop him by the others was to grapple and sub-dual-beat-the-hell-out-of-him. :smallbiggrin:

[AdalKar]

It will be level 2 standard WBL, so they have more HP and maybe some survivability :smallsmile:

Yeah, that are exactly thoughts that I had, that's why I'm asking for help.
In the campains I played in or DMed lately everything was highly lethal and we needed to improvise quite heavily, so I'm kinda stuck on ideas how to make the dungeon fun, educational and survivable, mostly so they can grasp the rules better (or start to begin understanding the rules and the rolling of the different dice etc.).

Edit:

In our campaign we revised the grappling rules by having one person charmed (or lured or what ever) and sent walking towards quick-sand. He failed the needed Will saves and only way to stop him by the others was to grapple and sub-dual-beat-the-hell-out-of-him. :smallbiggrin:

Sounds like a lot of fun :smallbiggrin:

[Gwendol]

Start out fairly simple, but force them to cooperate in order to survive. What classes will they play you think? Sometimes the setting can do a lot for increasing the amount of fun.

[Undercroft]

For me when i had a new player I took a bit of time explaining the combat rules (in a general sense, using a pre-existing character vs some orcs to show the basics).

Then when the players rolled up some new lvl 1 characters i did a basic dungeon crawl. Local wizard had his spellbook stolen by kobolds, and without his book he isn't powerful enough to get it back. Then it transitioned into a general dungeon crawl.

For the inital encounters i had kobolds doing little hit and run attacks, but generally losing.
Then i started adding in the odd pitfall trap with kobolds equiped with tanglefoot bags / flasks of acid. Even a couple traps can start to make them try think outside the box.

[Herabec]

This is the module I sent my party through at level 1. The Burning Plague (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20000801a).

It's pretty challenging for a first level group, but they thought it was quite fun. Many laughs were had when the rogue placed a thunderstone in his pocket, then fell down a pit and landed on his ass.

Deafened the whole group. XD

[The Glyphstone]

The Burning Plague is an excellent starter module adventure. I like to precede it with A Dark and Stormy Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a) first, to teach basic game mechanics, then follow up with TBP as an intro into the quest/roleplaying aspect.

[Tvtyrant]

I ran a Kobold infested cave for my first adventure; the village believed that there was a dragon in the cave and paid the adventurers to go kill it.

The cave was designed as a tribal settlement, with a room for each major function.

1. Kitchen with a Grick/Carrion Crawler hole for garbage (they couldn't get out of the hole, so you could go in and fight it or leave it alone as you wished).

2. Weapon room where some Kobold spear-makers were making...Spears.

3. Altar room with a Kobold Adept.

4. Treasure/Dragon room that had a CR 2 Drake in it as a mini-dragon.

5. A locked door that lead into the underdark that the party could explore once they got their gold from the town. Had a big spider, a Mind Flayer head and several other underdark monsters carved onto the door with a pair of exclamation marks.

[AdalKar]

Great suggestions! Thank you very much, all of you :smallsmile:
I think I got it all together now.

Now I only need to have enough free-time to make the chars with them and to actually run this adventure :smallannoyed:

[Incanur]

My first D&D adventure involved dire rats. Lots and lots of dire rats. We'd fight a few, get beat up and diseased, then exit the dungeon to recover. This last step typically failing climb checks and falling.

:smallsigh:

[Ozreth]

http://www.amazon.com/Sunless-Citadel-Dungeons-Dragons-Adventure/dp/0786916400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304972932&sr=8-1

There ya go. Best intro adventure for 3e, hands down. They'll remember it for years and it is super simple to run with a read through (I think its less than 30 pages).

[KillianHawkeye]

Here's an idea for a simple educational trap:

An open, 10-foot deep pit, 5-feet across, in the middle of a hallway. It's a DC 10 Jump check to get across (DC 5 if you have a running start). You can leave some wooden planks in the previous room which the players can use to cross if they remember them (DC 10 Balance check to cross). If they fall into the pit (and take 1d6 falling damage), then they can try to climb the rough stone walls (DC 15 Climb check, or DC 5 if somebody lowers them a rope).

You can do other things similar to this. Basically, have an obstacle which has different ways of getting around it, so each character can go in their own way (Fighter jumps across, Rogue walks over a wooden plank, etc.) and they get some practice using skills.

[Safety Sword]

2. Weapon room where some Kobold spear-makers were making...Spears.


As long as the head spear maker's name is Brittney...